5 comments about Adobe Camera Raw for Digital Photographers Only (For Only).

1. If like me, you have ever tried taking an adult education class at a local community college to expose yourself to a new topic, you might understand my experience with this book. The author has all the dynamism of a bottle of cold molasses. He is like the ham radio operator who somehow has landed a job teaching Introduction to Broadcasting in the local community college. He may have the passion and the knowledge, but it certainly doesn't come through. This book drags on and on without imparting the information. His style treads the borderline of being pontification. One must endure a full 100 pages of this 350 page book before getting to the meat of the subject and THEN, the author does not provide the images to work along with that first exercise. In fact, for the entire book, he has provided a total of 8 images to download and work with the text.
   
   Especially if you are an aficionado of the writing/teaching style of someone like Deke McClelland, you really need to save your money and look for another book on camera raw. I admit, i got no further with this book than page 125, and i'd sell it on Ebay if only i wouldn't feel guilty for ripping someone off by doing so. I'll donate it to the public library.



2. Without a doubt this has been the greatest photography book that I have ever read; and I have an extensive library of other titles.



3. The subject of Adobe Camera Raw is covered well. There are some typos when talking about the controls in the Basic tab. In ACR version 4.* the Shadows adjustment has been renamed to Blacks. The author makes a point of discussing the change but then proceeds to call the control by it's old name, Shadows instead of Blacks.



4. Rob Sheppard has become one of the most prolific and well-received in the now crowded field of digital imaging authors and educators. Every writer has a style, and Rob's is simple and direct, avoiding hype and always seeking to communicate in the clearest possible manner regardless of the complexity of the topic.
   
   Really learning Adobe Camera Raw is not a simple task. There are many books on the subject varying in style from ponderous and mind-numbingly detailed, to once-over-lightly treatises that are mostly pictures and little substance. This book strikes a fine balance with accurate, colloquial, understandable discussion of the often highly technical details supported by ample illustrations and images to provide a visually appealing lesson that will tend to stick in your personal data bank. If you have no other books on Camera Raw, this would be an excellent one to start with, even if you are a "visual learning" person.
   
   This edition has numerous positive attributes. Its clear, concise, easy-to-read language cuts to the heart of complex issues, keeping them as non-technical as possible. Rob also avoids absolutes, suggesting that his opinion, as informed as it is, may not be the right answer for the reader. He points out there are often several different ways to accomplish a certain goal, and one method may suit an individual photographer better than another. One minor shortcoming is that the description of a task and its paired illustration sometimes wind up on different pages; this doesn't lessen the overall value, but it does make it a little harder to assimilate.
   
   One fine point worth noting is the discussion of sharpening during the Raw conversion. Anyone familiar with Bruce Fraser, PixelGenius, and PhotoKit Sharpener will want to study this section very carefully, for the "new" Camera Raw has incorporated some new sharpening features from this highly regarded plug-in that could make a real difference in achieving your highest quality output.
   
   Conclusion. Highly recommended. If Rob Sheppard writes it, it's bound to be good, and it is. Adobe Camera Raw is a fundamental cornerstone for the highest quality digital image processing for many top photographers, and this book, if studied carefully, will unlock most of Camera Raw's secrets. If you apply what you learn, you'll be able to take your photography to an entirely new level.



5. This book is one of the reasons I have started shooting in RAW format. Another reason? Photoshop Elements and the free Camera RAW plug-in from Adobe.
   
   All in all, the text appears to cover pretty much everything you would really need to know about Camera RAW and how to use it to show your photos at their best.
   
   At times the illustrations don't clearly show the subtle changes that result from applying some of the optional settings, but that probably is more a function of the limitations of photo print reproduction in an affordable book.

5 comments about Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992.

1. I didn't have to go far for the book I was looking for. The book was almost brand new when I recieved it and I got a great deal. There was not a mark on it and the price was great. I had read some of the previous reviews from other online reviews that helped me make the decision to purchase this book.



2. I think that the government did nothing good at this time(1992) and he still isn't doing anything good for us. The poor is getting poorer and the rich is still rich. We cant work because our brains are dieying with out food. This book is a wonderful but the tragic moments are very sad and disapointing. I dont think that anyone should have more power oer us no matter what. We should be exempt and work for our families in different countries. I will fight for the people in my community and it will be anarchy. I will beat the system and nobody will stop me!



3. This play offers the viewer a chance to reflect on recent history in California. It is an intelligent look at the discussion of race in America. Any chance for thoughtful self-evaluation is an opportunity to grow and learn. Anna Deavere Smith's work is grand.



4. Anna Deavere Smith truly brought out what the LA riots of 1992 were about. She shows us how blind we can all be, how an action of one person can actually cause the suffering of another for the rest of their lives. It was scary to think that this could have happened anywhere, or anytime. She showed us that sometimes, we have to open out eyes and watch was is going on around us. It was a great experience. The characters touched me deeply. I recommend it to everyone.



5. I had the extreme pleasure of sitting in two classes with Ms. Smith as she talked about Twilight. It is a wonderful work with a documentary foundation that educates you on the happenings during the infamous Los Angeles riots, from Korean shopkeepers to Black gang members to White-male politicians--Smith has made sure every reader gets the full spectrum of views. Each monologue is actually an interview Smith personally conducted; each are placed in an order that somehow manages to flow together to tell a collective story of an unfortunate occurence in recent American history and justice. It will remind you that the passions of the event had personal roots for all involved.

5 comments about One Hundred Seashells.

1. I LOVE this book!. It's a large, beautifully photographed coffee table book designed to delight the senses. I bought a second copy and framed six of the photographs for a spectacular wall display. If you love photography, seashells, or just a great coofee table book...this is a winner!!



2. I used this book as my sign in book at our wedding 2 weeks ago and everybody loved it. they loved so much that i have to order another one for a close friend who is opening a new restuarant and wants one for the table in the lounge. The rest. is beach house theme is go so well there. The photograpghs are so beatiful. thank you c.f. from ft.lauderdale



3. This is an absolutely gorgeous book. I learned of its existence at a beach wedding we attended recently where it was used as a Guest Book. People were expected to select a page and sign in on a shell with a big Sharpie pen. Naturally, when we celebrated our 25th Anniversary at the Yacht Club with a beach/shell/nautical theme last week, we used the book in the same way. People loved looking through the impressive photographs and it will be a beautiful memory maker for years to come!



4. I purchased this for my friend who has a condo on the water in Naples and it looks beautiful on her coffee table. Everyone who visits admires it. It's a very beautiful book and the perfect hostess gift. We really enjoy it!



5. Although this book has some compelling and beautiful photographs, they fall short of the high resolution photos we have all become used to. The photos (or perhaps the printing) lacks the clarity and detail that high-res photos (or printing) would have given.

1 comments about Final Cut Pro HD for Dummies.

1. Note: For Mac users only. But then again, most of the people wanting to do things like edit movies are using a Mac already.
   
   Final Cut Pro HD, is the latest version of the Final Cut program. HD stands for High Definition, and this version is indeed capable of editing HD video. But like with a lot of other software packages, the basic tools that you will use every day form the basics of the package, and they can be learned in a short time. Then as you reach points where you want to do more you can go back to the book to catch up on each point as you need it.
   
   Final Cut is suitable for editing the movies showing you new baby, or if you really want to you can use it to get just about as sophisticated as you need for that feature length film you are making with your A-List actor friends. As with all the For Dummies books, this book isn't really for dumb people, it is for people that are just un trained on this particular package. It's a good book.

No comments about On Reading.

4 comments about Dora Lives: The Authorized Story Of Miki Dora.

1. Have always liked the mystic behind Da Cat, but this book was a bit of a heavy read. Can't really put my finger on what it was about it that made it difficult to read, it just was. Regardless of that though, he certainly was a character. Bit mad. Bit anti-establishment. Bit sad.



2. I didn't know Dora (too young, I came later) but I know many people who did. As with any good story teller, and he apparently was, there a figments of even "truth" that accompany the life exaggerations in this book. To a man, (at least, my acquaintences)described him as an invenerate lier, cheat, and con artist.....but entertaining, non-the-less. The consumate surf bum and original "me, me, me" before the in vouge "me" decade practitioner.
   
   That is the problem with this (well-written, at least) book on Dora's life. Half, at least, is probably crap....but what crap it is!
   
   I would rather listen/read-about Dora's lies, than have to wade through a lot of pontification by other surf media "journalists" (Rabbit, Hynd, etc.) any day.
   
   In death even, exaggeration can become myth, can become legend, then even truth.



3. I bought the book for my son for christmas and had Amazon post it direct to him in Laos he received it the day promised and he is very happy he said the book is great and is spending time reading. Thank You Amazon



4. DORA LIVES is a posthumous biography on Miki Dora, a pioneering surfer from the 1950s and 1960s, and on page 23, it says this about artistic temperament:
   
   "Perhaps the greatest creation of the artist is the persona of the artist himself. You can see the artist as 'a sensitive' ... or as a human being that has failed at being completely hypnotized like the rest of the population. The artist is painfully (and perhaps not unconsciously) aware of this - aware of his or her objective isolation, as opposed to the subjective isolation of the general, so-called 'normal' population, which the artist perceives as not unlike the walking dead. There's an ethic in surf culture that opposes the overly structured life. That refuses to comply with insistence. That resists temptation. Of a sort."
   
   I don't entirely agree with this statement, but I agree with the sense of it. Yes, I agree that artists need a fair degree of leeway in order to function. And I do agree that there is a contentment in being unconscious about one's loneliness, and that artists tend to be restless souls who are painfully aware of their "objective isolation."
   
   Such psychological language is almost too high-falutin' for a surfer bio, though, and I'm not sure I understand the unexplained difference between subjective and objective isolation -- just one of several unelaborated pronouncements in the above paragraph.
   
   I think it's a bit arrogant to label the general populace as "not unlike the walking dead." I'm suspicious of any attempt to blame society, however covertly, for one's situation, since it does nothing to solve one's problems. We are all society, even (perhaps especially) artists. I think perhaps the writer is attempting to make some statement about the examined versus the unexamined life.
   
   Yet each of us has some degree of self-awareness, yes? However fragmentary and inconsistent one's self-awareness may be, I don't think anyone thinks of himself as the "walking dead," except perhaps the hyper-sensitive artist. I've made statements, often artistic ones, about standing apart from the "herd," yet ultimately, does this really help the artist with her situation? Maybe it helps her come to terms with her alienation. I know that this is why I became an artist rather than an academic. I didn't see any comfort there.
   
   I think it's almost the place of the artist to locate comfort within discomfort -- to become comfortable with being uncomfortable, and to use that tension as a creative springboard. I don't think that the structural and political demands of career academia would have set well with my temperament. There are some kinds of discomfort that one never succeeds in accommodating.
   
   On page 32 is an excellent example:
   
   "Tracey, suddenly without a paycheck and completely broke, figured he might as well just sleep on the beach, which he did. After awakening in the morning damp, he spent the next day harvesting palm fronds, driftwood, and assorted junk from the lagoon and built himself a shack to call home. It was the beginning of something.
   [...] "As her father would describe in the novel GIDGET, the first-person recreation of his daughter's summer published in 1957, Malibu was one big party, orchestrated by Tracey, and it ran all summer long. And at the end of it, at Malibu's 1st Annual Luau, Tube [Tracey] torched his grass shack.
   "The following summer it was the cops that tore down the shack. Apparently, the city fathers were concerned that the trend at Malibu wasn't entirely wholesome; after all, it was a public beach. Those summers of love - before the beats, before the hippies, and very likely anticipating both - were profoundly brief and retrospectively perfect, so the nostalgia for them became a powerful intoxicant to chroniclers of surfing history."
   
   I suppose every artist has some sense memory like this, some epiphany or satori where the realization hits him that he, like some accidentally observed bit of outcast culture, is "different," and from that moment on, his life is changed.
   
   One aspect of this book that evokes surfer culture is a total lack of chapter breaks, which imbues it with a surfer's sense of the eternal now. The copious full-page photos -- often in color, sometimes colorized to heightened dramatic effect, and often composed of fold-out plates -- add to this effect and give the reader a larger-than-life sense of involvement with the story. Like a wave, they pull the reader along.
   
   The text seeks neither to glorify Dora nor rebuke him for his flaws and excesses, presenting a balanced portrait of a man living at the margins of a glamorous, hedonistic society -- namely, postwar through '60s Hollywood - playing it for all he can while flipping it the bird. In Miki Dora, unbridled opportunism clashed with a palpable moral outrage at Hollywood's hype, that relentless synthesis of media and glitz belying its trade in the exploitation of souls and resultant carnage. Like the lava meeting the surf, such a deep-seated conflict solidified within Dora as that most confounding and unlikely of heroes, the rebel with a cause. This cause emerged as an unquenchable quest for an unattainable purity -- a cause he could only deign to access by granting himself unlimited license to ride the wave of showmanship and the celebrity it brought to his feet. Cynics such as Dora need no external authority to grant them access past the gates of privilege, as they see it for the sham that it is. Thus, they remain "unhypnotized" -- at least, by privilege. But what about their own need to rebel?
   
   --Bill Brent [edited 24 July 2007]

3 comments about Approaching Nowhere: Photographs.

1. If you collect art books about the contemporary landscape, this is one you should have. It's Brouws' sixth book, and is an ideal summation of his very productive career so far.
   
   Brouws' work defines the term "landscape" as do the great cultural geographers, such as J.B. Jackson: It's a terrain that acts upon and is acted upon by its human inhabitants. There are few things more confounding, yet fascinating, than the behavior of other humans. We persist in the same habits and choices, despite frequently catastrophic results. Approaching Nowhere illuminates these foibles by studying their consequences through superb photography.
   
   While Brouws' edifying eye for this world is sharply focused on the often sad reality of uncivilized sprawl, I find no stridence or intemperate cynicism in his attitude. Instead, I see the investigative sensibility of an earnest anthropologist, combined with the creative eloquence of a very talented artist.



2. I've been deeply touched by this book. Jeff Brows is a master creating moments and places.
   
   I'm writting this review after two previous one which describes perfectly what this incredible book is, so I won't repeat it.
   
   I just can say that I'd file this book under "poetry".
   
   Greetings from Barcelona



3. They're everywhere and so like the title of this book: nowhere. Wherever the tarmac leads signs of commercial chaos and eventually abandonment will probably appear. In theory nothing wrong with that, businesses come and go but it seems unique to America that a gone business is remarkably reluctant to clean up after itself. The detritus of commerce just litters the landscape and a fortunate by-product of this mess, over recent years, is an increasing visual record created by a small band of brilliant topographic photographers.
   
   Jeff Brouws has spent some years casting his creative eye over urban sprawl, interstate commercial failure and inner city decay. This latest book captures all this so well in these ninety-eight photos. The first thing you'll notice about the book (perhaps portfolio is a better word) is the size, an impressive 12.25 inches deep by 11.5 wide which gives the images the sort of display they deserve, helped also by the excellent layout and 175dpi printing. Divided into three photographic sections: Highway Landscape, Discarded Landscape and Impossibility of Ruins, this last section has nineteen remarkable shots of rust-belt inner city decay. Because of the vastness of this city blight there is more chance that the authorities will do something about it while the single abandoned highway gas station will stay just that--abandoned.
   
   The Highway Landscape has the most photos and it is here that frequently a shot will jump off the page, it just seems so right. Page sixty-one has a beautiful night image of the Sands Restaurant in Fresno, a neon sign and other lettering perfectly framed within the image area or the gas station ruins in Vidal Junction, CA, nicely composed into thirds, sky, buildings and an earth foreground. Brouws, like photographers from the Farm Security Administration onwards, has a sharp eye for signage, either neon or painted on exterior walls, most of the photos in the book have a bit of lettering somewhere.
   
   Approaching Nowhere seems a continuation of his two earlier books, 'Highway: America's Endless Dream' 1997 (ISBN 1556706049) which has a few of the same photos and 'Readymades' 2003 (ISBN 0811836770) a remarkable book of several hundred photos of what can be seen from the Nation's roads. All three books capture the contemporary texture of the outside 'nowhere' beautifully.
   
   *Temporary/Obsolete/Abandoned/Derelict
   
   
   ***FOR AN INSIDE LOOK click 'customer images' under the cover.

5 comments about Pedal.

1. The book is great, I love the photos, but was expecting more words to go with them. Only downside is the cover fell off the first time I opened it up, the glue let go. I think I can fix it up with something a bit better though.
   
   The documentary is pretty good, an interesting look into the lives of some NY messengers. It only seems to scratch the surface though - there must be so much more of a story there. I would have liked to have heard from more people. And coverage of CMWC would have been good too.
   
   I'll definitely watch it a few more times before lending it out to friends. Overall a really cool package.



2. The photo booklet that comes with Pedal is a nice bonus as I originally purchased this for the documentary as I had viewed a couple clips of it on Youtube. Personally I always found the bike messenger "scene" as something very interesting and I found that this documentary gave one a good feel for it, but I will say that if you're not already interested in this topic the documentary is a bit short and not that engrossing.



3. It's an interresting document as it exposes this "counterculture" collective - bicycle messengers. The book is rather superficial with plenty of pictures and only four texts which vary considerably, ranging from contradictory-ragefilled-selfcentered-discourse to some interesting clearly depicting analysis. The DVD is great! Covering that cosmos: from the despatcher to the messenger, the bike races to the pedal driven task force in action.
   
   Overall I rate it 4 stars, since it gets you acquainted to the NY messenger collective.
   
   Jorge Coelho, Portugal, Faro



4. As a former messenger and current bicycle enthusiast, i usually enjoy any documentary or movie on being a bike messenger. I just exspected more from this one. Its kinda depressing at times (tho, being a messenger can be depressing at times so i understand). The packaging and book are nice tho.



5. Anyone familiar with the current art scene would jump to buy this and understandbly so with the names involved, unfortunately, it's a disappointment. I hate to slam it because I like Sutherland's work, but I was just hoping for so much more out of the documentary. Most of the interviews are boring (mainly because they last too long), there aren't very many messangers shown, there's nothing on the film about the CMWC, which could've at least provided him with more interviews, and there's only one messanger whose life is shown beyond the surface.

3 comments about Art and Photography (Themes & Movements S.).

1. Notwithstanding the promise of its title, "Art in Photography" is simply a survey of avant-garde photography of the last half of the twentieth century.
   
   The book is divided into three parts: an essay by Campany, photographs and other works, and documents consisting of excerpts of articles, interviews and statements. The essay is divided into sections with titles like "The Urban and the Everyday" with similar sections of the photographs and documents. Each essay section makes a few general comments about the new in photography and then discusses in a sentence or two the particular photographers whose works appear among the photographs.
   
   The essay's principal thesis is that while other plastic arts moved away from content toward form in modern times, photography has generally moved away from form to content. At the same time, the goal of either set of movements was always self-referential, although it seemed as if photographers were deliberately subverting the form to show its inadequacies. (The author ignores the main stream of photography during that same period, when there were many portrait, fashion and landscape photographers who clung splendidly to the combination of form and content, using form to explicate the content.)
   
   The essay is often supported by thumbnails an inch and three-quarters high, but it is difficult to see much at this small size, and the reader may be further confounded in the effort to relate the picture to the text by the fact that the captions for the thumbnails are printed vertically in small type, requiring one to rotate the book 90 degrees and then look closely to confirm the relationship of the picture to the text.
   
   The pictures themselves are difficult to understand out of the context of a particular photographer's work, although occasionally an image will arrest one's eye, like the photograph of a single woman's face turned toward the camera in a sea of black-cloaked praying Moslem women, or Chuck Close's painting of Philip Glass. For the most part the pictures, out of context, are enigmatic. Campany acknowledges that it is difficult to draw any consistent theory of photography from the pictures.
   
   The documents vary in interest from insightful articles to artistic double-speak. It pained me to see Walter Benjamin's seminal article "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction" abridged to a short excerpt, but it does add the flavor of the work to some understanding of the pictures presented.
   
   Survey books are always difficult for me because they can never go into enough detail to comprehend larger movements. Still, for the individual interested in a collection of representative works of avant-garde photography, this book may fill the bill,



2. The book starts with a 35-page survey written by the editor does a very good job of covering photography's use in the arts. This is then followed by some 150 pages of photographs. The next 80 pages cover the documents, writings on and by the artists using photography in their practice. The book concludes with artist and author biographies and a decent bibliography.
   
   Both the photography and the documents are organized into rough thematic groupings. These are:
   * Memories and Archives
   * Objective Objects
   * Traces of Traces
   * The Urban and the Everyday
   * The Studio Image
   * The Arts of Reproduction
   * `Just' Looking
   * The Cultures of Nature
   This organizational structure works quite well, in that rather than overwhelming you with a whole book worth of imagery and commentary, it is divided into more manageable chunks that still allow contemplation of the whole but also allow a tighter consideration, as needed. The work and documents cover the whole time range from the 60's to the early 21st Century (2003 to be specific, the year of publication). So the book is an excellent survey document.
   
   Anyone who is serious at coming to grips with the use of photography in contemporary art practice should have this book handy. It brings together in one great resource not only great examples of the work produced but also, through collating the writings that are included, bringing together the thoughts, criticisms and analysis of the major artists, critics, theorists and analysts of the time. Very highly recommended.



3. The front free endpaper of this book says "Art and Photography is the first book of its kind to survey the presence of photography in artistic practice from the 1960s onwards. The photographic image is central to contemporary art and the debates that surround it, yet it took most of the last century for it to acquire this status. Despite the extensive exploration of photography as an independent art in the Modernist era, it was not until the late twentieth century that artists, museums and galleries began to explore its social roles as a medium of representation. This volume provides a comprehensive survey of photography's place in recent art history, further contextualized in the Documents section by original artists' statements and interviews, together with critical and theoretical reflections on the photographic and the art of the photograph."
   
   Does the book live up to this hype? I think it does. It's a handsome 304-page tome, with the first two-thirds printed on white semiglossy paper (for the "Survey" and "Works") and the last third on cream-colored uncoated paper (for the "Documents," biographies, bibliography, and index).
   
   The "Survey," "Works," and "Documents" parts are arranged into the same eight sections: "Memories and Archives" on "public and private histories"; "Objective Objects" on photos' "apparently direct relation to the world"; "Traces of Traces" on "photography as a record of the real and its effects"; "The Urban and the Everyday" on "contemporary city life"; "The Studio Image" on "fine art's traditional space of making"; "The Arts of Reproduction" on "works that reflect upon the way mass culture is experienced as fragments"; " 'Just' Looking" on "the social structures of vision and the place of the gaze in the formation of our identity"; and "The Cultures of Nature" on "how the current understandings of the natural are formed and reflected through contemporary representation." This organization is unique to my knowledge; most books on art are arranged chronologically or by artist.
   
   The "Survey" essay by David Campany places the Works and Documents into historical context and explains in some detail the eight categories. It's illustrated with small reproductions of art and photos. I found it enlightening.
   
   Within each of the eight sections of "Works," from pages 46 to 205, the photos are presented in more or less chronological order, with the earliest works dating from the 1960s. Of the dozens of photographers, the ones who have more than one photo (from different series) reproduced in the book are John Baldessari, Victor Burgin, Gregory Crewdson, John Divola, John Hilliard, Joel Meyerowitz, Gabriel Orozco, Richard Prince, Gerhard Richter, Martha Rosler, Thomas Ruff, Allan Sekula, Cindy Sherman, Thomas Struth, Hiroshi Sugimoto, Larry Sultan, Jeff Wall, Andy Warhol, Gillian Wearing, and William Wegman. I detect no significant errors of omission or commission in the choice of artists. The specifications of media (e.g., "tinted black and white photographs") and dimensions, and the lengthy captions, are valuable.
   
   "Documents" contains excerpts of writings by photographers (including ones with only a single photograph in "Works," e.g., Yve Lomax and Robert Smithson) and non-photographers (e.g., Roland Barthes, Jacque Derrida, Craig Owens, Marcel Proust), as well as interviews with photographers. These "mostly left-brain" texts complement the "half-left-brain, half-right-brain" Works.
   
   If I had to improve anything, I would say to editor Campany and publisher Phaidon only "Lay off the fancy typography, like the 'decreasing font size' effect from page 14 to page 17, and the full-page treatment of brief quotations on pages 221, 226, 235, and 283! While it makes the book visually attractive, it distracts from the book's main messages and wastes space." Buy this excellent book from Amazon.com!

5 comments about Blythe Style.

1. I own a Blythe doll, which just recently arrived here at home after a lot of research on my part. I know about face types ("superior and "radiant"), the different companies who are allowed to reproduce the dolls (which were originally released in 1972 for one year only, by Kenner), customization of Blythe dolls, and the best websites to read tutorials on that, and where to find outfits for my new, fantastic Blythe!
   
   As you may have guessed by now I am a "reading-type" person! Because of this, I felt that it would be fun and important to also add the books which photographer Gina Garan had created, to my Blythe collection.
   
   The way the story goes, Gina received an original Kenner Blythe doll as a gift from someone who felt that Blythe looked like Gina. Gina began taking her on photoshoots and practicing taking pictures using her as a model. Shortly Gina was never without her. Since that time Blythe has travelled the world with Gina, making each of them famous both in the fashion arena and in charity work as well. Many of the Blythes in this wonderful book are dressed by top couture designers, and were later shown off in Vogue Nippon magazine, ultimately to be auctioned off to support children's charities. How great! The introduction to this book explains how that came about and is written by Junko Wong, a lovely person who met up with Gina and really got much of the interest in the Blythe phenomenon to grow.
   
   As a mother of two children with severe dsabilities (and five sons in total!), I am always gratified to read about events which raise money for children's charities of all sorts!
   However, that is actually beside the point in one sense. This book stands on its own as an elegant testimonial to a fantastic, personality packed creation...the doll who is Blythe.
   
   Blythe dolls have four different eye colors! What you do is pull a string on the back of her head to make her eyes click to a different color. She has two "straight ahead" colors, then there is one which looks off to the right, and one which looks off to the left. One of the "straight ahead" colors is what is called the "main color". In the case of my doll, it is described as a "mysterious purple" color. I love all of her eye colors and they do change her expression and personality. Add a collection of doll clothes, such as the great ones you can get through Gina's own website, www.thisisblythe.com, which I thoroughly recommend, and you will be having the time of your life dressing up your own doll, photographing her, if you enjoy that, or just..loving her.
   
   If you don't want to spend the money on a doll, buy this book instead! Or consider this other book This is Blythe, by Gina as well, available here on Amazon.com . Gina has captured every expresssion, every mood, every situation you might imagine coming up in a doll's daily life. She has accomplished it in a thoroughly charming, beautifully photographed manner!
   
   If you have never seen Paris, see it with Blythe as your companion! Feel like a day at the beach? Blythe does, too!
   
   Quiet times, dress-up times, visits to foreign countries galore; you will have a ball with Blythe at your side. I totally recommend this book and would not be without it. I love my doll, and I love Gina Garan for rediscovering the treasure that is Blythe!



2. This is a fine book. All of the images make you suddenly forget they are dolls; you start feeling like watching models displaying designer clothes.
   If you like Blythe, this is a must.
   The edition is excellent.
   Mint item...!



3. If you love Blythe dolls -- or dolls in general -- you will certainly love this book. It's got really creative photos of Blythe dolls. Very imaginative and well-done book!



4. This is an amazing book for someone in the fashion or design business. Not only the clothing is great but the styling is beautiful, witty and in perfect coordination with the spirit of the clothes.
   I highly recommend this book.



5. This book shows photos of Blythe wearing creations from dozens of designers all over the world. It is full of inspiration for collectors who design and sew their own fashions for Blythe.